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Lynk Labs v. Samsung: Prior Art Dated From Filing

Federal Circuit, decided 14 January 2025. This decision construes pre-AIA section 102(e)(1). Read from the opinion; quotations verified against the court's text.

Holding

On January 14, 2025 the Federal Circuit held that 35 U.S.C. §§ 311(b) and 102(e)(1) "permit IPR challenges based upon published patent applications, and such published patent applications can be deemed prior art in IPRs as of their filing date," which means a document invisible to the public when an invention was made can still defeat it.

Prior art searches usually filter by publication date, because a document nobody could read cannot have taught anyone anything. Patent applications break that intuition.

They sit unpublished for eighteen months, and this decision holds that once published they count as prior art from the day they were filed, under the pre-AIA statute it construes. A search that filters by publication date can miss references that are effective a year and a half earlier.

For anyone assessing whether an invention is new, or building tooling that surfaces prior art, this changes what "before" means.

A related decision, and why it is only a note

On August 14, 2026 the Federal Circuit affirmed in Nielsen Co. v. TVision Insights that a facial-analysis reference was analogous art to the challenged patent, because it had "a same purpose" and its methods would "logically . . . have commended [themselves] to an inventor's attention." The practical consequence for a prior-art search is that a patent can be defeated by work nobody in your field was reading.

It appears here as a dated note rather than as its own page because it was decided the same day this material was compiled, and our record of it is deliberately narrow. Treat it as a marker, not a foundation.

What This Case Is Not

The clean rule is wrong for most patents in force today. "Prior art dates from filing" is memorable and, stated without the pre-AIA qualifier, incorrect for patents governed by the America Invents Act. The qualifier belongs in the same sentence as the rule, which is why it is in the holding above and not in a footnote.
  • It does not say whether your invention is anticipated.
  • It does not say any particular prior-art search is adequate.
  • It does not establish the rule for post-AIA patents. That question is outside this decision.

Educational, not legal advice. Litigation strategy and exposure are determinations for counsel with the actual facts.

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